The prime minister denied today that the Foreign Office had agreed to the lifting of a travel ban on Zimbabwe's leader, Robert Mugabe.

Challenged in the Commons at question time, Mr Blair said "no agreement" had been reached on the issue.

He was speaking just minutes after the international development secretary, Clare Short, told MPs it would be "disgraceful" if France's president, Jacques Chirac, breached international sanctions and met Mr Mugabe in Paris next month.

The matter was raised with Mr Blair by Nick Hawkins, who said: "Reports this morning suggest the Foreign Office has agreed to a French request to lift the veto on President Mugabe travelling to Europe.

"Will you instruct the foreign secretary to impose the British veto at a meeting next week as the shadow foreign secretary has demanded?"

Mr Blair told him: "We've made it clear that we support the sanctions that are in place against Zimbabwe.

"The meeting, I understand, is to take place on Monday and no agreement has been reached."

Earlier, the Tories had demanded to know whether Britain had backed an invitation from Mr Chirac for Mr Mugabe to attend the Paris summit.

Mr Ancram said it was "hypocrisy of the highest order" for Mr Chirac to invite Mr Mugabe when EU sanctions were supposed to ban travel within the union by Zimbabwe's elite.

Yves Charpentier, the head of press at the French embassy in London, said that France was considering inviting President Mugabe to the summit, but added: "Nothing has been decided yet.

"We will be discussing this among the EU members at next week's meeting."

The prime minister's official spokesman said: "We are aware of the reports but don't have any detail at this stage. If that is the intention of the French government then we would expect them to share full details with the British government."

The spokesman added he understood there was to be "further discussion" at Monday's EU foreign ministers' meeting.